In the past week, a glitch was discovered by Geta92, involving stacking two textboxes on top of each other, allowing for interesting effects. These effects that are useful for speedrunning include wrong warps from Birdramon (warping to beneficial places such as Lava Cave and the basement of Grey Lords Mansion), buying glitch items both to "glitch" recruitments into the city that have not been done by regular means as well as setting certain triggers, such as accessing Mt. Infinity before reaching 50 prosperity points, as well as glitching the shops to buy generic items that are coded in the game.

This thread aims to discuss what to do with this glitch with regards to the categories. As mods, we want to hear your opinions, as well as stating our own such that the discussion is completely transparent between everybody. There are going to be three categories on the leaderboards, which are any% (anything goes within the ruleset currently put in place, i.e. no hardware manip/debug), a second category and 100 Prosperity, both of which are to be discussed.

Essentially, the category discussion has boiled down to two different scenarios with this second category and 100 Prosperity.

1. Completely ban the use of the glitch, labelling the categories as "No Major Glitches". This naming convention would avoid confusion as to what is defined as a glitch in the current runs and what isn't, as well as not falling into the trap of calling it "glitchless" and having to ban if another beneficial glitch with slightly less game-breaking properties were to be discovered.

2. Ban certain aspects of the glitch, primarily the setting of the trigger of being able to enter Mt. Infinity and the "fake recruitments", i.e. all 50pp would have to be recruited before entering Mt. Infinity in the second category and all 100 pp would have to be recruited from its source in the 100 Prosperity category.

Please feel free to discuss your opinions on either of these two options, as well as sharing if you have any other ideas on how to approach this that may not fall under either of these two options.

Thanks. Despite this being a discussion on categories (which seems to be notoriously hostile in a lot of speedrunning communities), I hope this can still be kept as civilised as possible!

I decided to post my own opinions in a different post, such that the OP would be kept as unbiased as possible.

Personally I believe that option 2 would be the better of the two as a runner of the game.

Pros

• It allows for more interesting strategies to evolve. There is not much timesave left from the current any% category (no major glitches) and therefore I believe it would have more interest if it were to allow for these glitches.
• It would allow for 100 Prosperity to become a FAR more interesting category. With either being able to buy an X-Bandage or set the trigger such that you would not have to digivolve into Monzaemon, it skips the dull "2nd generation" phase of the speedrun.
• It makes (what is currently any%) more consistent in being able to remove Garurumon from the route, meaning less runs dying there and no second visit to Freezeland allowing for further RNG manipulation.
• It would be unfortunate for this glitch to go unused in categories other than any% in my opinion, especially with the nature of any% being a category that may not appeal for runners to do more than a couple runs of. Personally, I don't even see myself running the category at all if the route is as static as it seems.

Cons

• Further developments of the glitch could in turn allow for the categories to become trivial and uninteresting, either meaning that further restrictions would be put in place, further categories may be created or worst case scenario, runs being invalidated if an existing glitch were to be utilised in a way that would be banned on the current ruleset.
• It is a very arbitrary line being drawn to allow certain aspects of the glitch and not allow others.
• Emulator would likely be outright banned generally or at least outright banned from utilising the glitch due to how it's properties differ on emu vs console (crashes etc.)

Some of these points are opinionated based on my experience as a runner so do take them with a grain of salt but this is what I believe.

For me, the 1st option should be the solution, which means that the glitch is only allowed in any% and the other category with all the times we have so far will stay as it is to be named No Major Glitches. Mainly to keep the old category alive because this is what we remember when Digimon World speedruns come to our mind. Imo it would be somewhat dumb to have two seperate categories of this glitch while still both runs can use the glitch. (even though that some features of it get banned in one category). But if we create 2 seperate categories for this (and that's what we will do as it seems) then one should allow the glitch in it's full glory and the other one should not allow it in any way. (What would that even be? Allowing wrong warps etc. but not allowing glitched recruitments?)

This is pretty much the point why we should go with option no. 1. I could take other arguments into consideration now and all the pro's listed by Kyutora but IMHO it's not worth it since the thing mentioned above already does the decision for me. the current leaderboard should get renamed to No Major Glitches and not allow the glitch in any way. Pretty much for the sake of every run we did already on this game before the glitch was found.

any% should be enough for the glitch utilisation, everything inbetween is arbitrary for my taste.

Another option one could consider is to have the categories: -any% (beat Machinedramon) -any% 50PP¤ (beat Machinedramon with 50PP before the fight) -100PP¤ (Jijimon’s confirmation of 100PP) ¤with the stipulation that the PP must be obtained from the intended source.

I believe this way the only thing you need to explicitly ban is fake recruiting, and you get the benefits of other (and future) glitches without needing to cherrypick. Waterfall skip would likely not benefit you in any% or 100PP, but at least it’s left as an option.

One thing I do want to point out before conversation continues is that people shouldn't refer to or summarize the findings of this entire week as one glitch. While other glitches are (currently) dependent on the textbox storage one, their impact on the run does not necessarily have to be viewed the same way. So when saying things like allowing the "glitch in its full glory", I would just be careful.

Imo, with the category suggestions I posted earlier, as long as you just remove fake recruitments (which is an entire glitch on its own), I don't think that you will need to worry too much about being arbitrary.

To be honest, I'd really prefer to go with option 2, simply for the sake of making the current runs more fun, reducing RNG and skipping annoying waiting times.

Any%: Anything goes, all aspects of this glitch included.

Any% - No major Glitches: While a complete ban would be the easiest way here, from what I've been told, wrong warps would make this category a lot better by essentially skipping waiting times and RNG, while not really breaking anything. Glitch Shops, setting triggers and glitch recruitments should be banned though as these are very major glitches and would make the run worse. I'd suggest any aspects of this glitch to banned that allow you to do or acquire something not possible in regular gameplay. So no glitch triggers and glitch recruits since these require glitch items that you cannot acquire in regular gameplay. Wrong warping to locations that do exit and where you can really go to could be allowed with that definition.

100pp: As the main objective is recruiting Digimon, recruits by glitch item should be banned. Wrong warps, setting triggers and buying item via glitch shop should be fine though, since they don't break your main objective that is the recruits. You'd simply have to get each recruit jingle naturally.

My issue with that Geta, is that I'd say that the "major glitch" aspect is the stacking of the textboxes themselves, not just being limited to the glitched shops, as functionally the menus work the same as the Birdramon warps but have different outcomes, i.e. buying/selling items you aren't supposed to normally and warping to places you aren't supposed to (please correct me if that is wrong). So essentially a "no major glitches" run would be identical to what is on the current any% leaderboards at the moment. So it wouldn't make sense to me for that category and 100pp to have differing rulesets.

Something that could maybe be considered is a sweeping ban on the use of glitch items for those two categories, as afaik you're unable to do the glitch recruitments or waterfall skip without them, but can still take advantage of the X-Bandage in the case of 100pp?

+1 to KHeartz's idea

Any%, 50pp and 100pp sounds like the best way to name the three categories, the limitations of those categories can be defined in the rules easily enough and can change based on whats found further without upsetting whats already done.

Something like "prosperity points cannot be obtained using glitch items" can be put in place on 50pp/100pp and would still allow things like setting the steak to spawn without entering Greylords or setting the Gear Savanna flight path on Birdramon just for some examples.

I guess I'm pretty much with KHeartz here, as well.

-> any% Beat Machinedramon in Mt. Infinity as fast as possible in any way, except Debug Menu and Cheating

-> any% 50PP Beat Machinedramon in Mt. Infinity while recruiting 50PP the "normal" way.

-> 100PP Recruit all Digimon that give PP the "normal" way.

The "normal" way would be executing the script that sets them as recruited and adds their PP. This would allow to use the Birdramon wrong warps and the buying of "arbitrary" items in shops.

What I'm really not sure about are two things: a) using glitch items/cards in order to set non-recruitment triggers (e.g. "can enter Toy Mansion") b) setting fake recruitments as long as you either recruit them properly later (-> unrecruit them with the glitch) or, in 50PP, still recruit enough Digimon the "normal" way.

Both give more theoretical routing options, but might move the categories away from their intention (especially 50PP). Right now I'm in favor of allowing a), as it gives many options, but ban b) as it makes things unnecessary complicated and will most likely not be useful anyways.

What might also be helpful is formulating the rules in a way that they can handle potential future discoveries.

———

Another thing that should be considered is the position of emulators. From what we've seen so far, ePSXe (1.9.0) is unable to emulate most aspects of the glitches accurately. This includes it not crashing, when console does, as well a loading certain menus faster/with less lag. Besides, the glitch needs save+quit on console, which is not allowed on emulator so far.

So, under this condition, ePSXe should probably banned from using the glitch entirely. I would suggest that we look into approving other, more accurate, emulators instead. The hit from slower loading times should be smaller than the timesave from the then viable strats ways. (And let's be honest, emulator will never hold a true WR anyways.)

I'd agree with KHeartz idea the most out of what's been said. However if that goes through.. What would happen to Piximon glitch (setting the current PP to the current day -1)? Before waterfall skip was found I was theorising a route in the background that used that as it's main exploit (can't pinpoint a time, yet the estimate was that it'd reach top 5 with 'decent' RNG) and with the discovery of day skip (sleeping on the hour of a digimon's waking time skips an entire day with no consequence) the run had some serious viability (probably not time-breaking, yet top 3 became very possible.)

So yeah. It's not a glitch that'd save a huge amount of time due to it's long set-up, yet it's also a glitch that has yet to be performed in a speedrun scenario. Yet if all PP has to be obtained legitimately, it'd also rule out that glitch. Do note that this glitch would be useless in 100pp as saving ends the effects of the glitch (which includes beating Machinedramon.)

My opinion is to keep the current any% as it is but renaming it (if you want no major glitches would fit the billing quite well imo) make the category with all glitches any% as that would be properly naming it. And don´t many any arbitrary rules just because it would make it more fun. We always tried to stay as far away from exactly that. This is the reason we don´t have a Gabumon% category on the board. We always wanted to make the board as clear as possible. And making a category that allows wrong warping but disallows all other new glitches is exactly what i never wanted to see in this game. arbitrary rulesets. It simply does not make any sense to include some glitches and forbid the usage of others in my opinion. Sure it may make the run more fun. But if you want to run this "category" (for example only using wrong warping but no other major glitches) nobody stops you from doing so. But i dont think it justifies having its own category on the leaderboard. I personally wouldnt want to argue why we allowed one glitch but not the other to anyone from the outside of the community, neither could i then give him a good reason why we dont have a gabumon category, Because if we start defining categories with arbitrary rules we should probably open up the gates entirely and comply with all the suggestions we ever had aswell. Since i dont want to do that either my vote would be to simply have 3 categories. Any%; Any%NMG and 100pp (idk if and how this would change with the use of the new glitches but maybe a split would be justified for this category aswell)

I would agree with that as at the end of the day "any%" just means "Beat the game as fast as possible without actual cheating." However you'd also have to consider the run-ability of said category as waterfall skip tends to wreck what the game is about in the first place (I'm sure someone here could explain this better than I can.) You go from "Recruit digimon as fast as possible and best Mt. Infinity" to "go through a bunch of menus; disregarding over 90% of the game's content and beating the game through pretty much arbitrary means."

So at the end of the day having more categories would basically mean less competition. Yet having unenjoyable categories reduces the competition even further. Imagine a new runner coming to the scene with their love for DW1 and seeing the game devolve to what is essentially 'menu simulator'. I doubt they'd want to do that as it sounds pretty boring.

Can't we just have 4 categories? Any%, Any% NMG, Any% "No Skips", 100pp

Any% would be everything allowed

Any% No Major Glitches would be what we have today

Any% "No Skips" would allow the new glitches, but with restrictions, like no fake recruitments. "No Skips" may not be the best name.

That way, people run whatever category they like the most.

With regards to the emulator point Syd has raised, I believe we can do one of four options (feel free to suggest any others if you feel there are more suitable ones)

1. Disallow the use of emulator entirely (though this would be the easiest and safest option, it would severely limit both competition and make the entry barrier to this game far higher)
2. Allow the use of ePSXe, but prohibit it from using the glitch entirely (would also limit competition, though it would allow beginners to put runs up, it's arbitrary but not too dissimilar to banning s+q)
3. Allow the use of Bizhawk that would be able to utilise the glitch [as far as I'm aware, Bizhawk emulates the glitches correctly, the issue being the load times would cause a huge rift in times between both console and prior emulated runs (on ePSXe). Using Bizhawk may also allow for save and quits to be allowed, as although they are slightly faster, it does not come with the inaccuracies of ePSXe.]
4. Combine options 2 and 3.

I guess on this topic it would make sense to discuss this as well, so let me know your guys' thoughts. I'll also make a post tomorrow evening on some of the responses I've seen but I'm kinda tired tonight so I'll leave this post with just the emulation issues for now (opening another can of worms here lmao).

Edit: Should say that it's likely any existing emulator runs will likely be grandfathered in regardless of outcome.

I can't say really much about specific glitch for now. So I'll leave them to mods to review (well I just missed Raikou's stream for a while to see completed runs)... I understand about blackwin5 point that arbitrary rules can confuse the community..

I personally have different opinion, especially because emulator from time to time will be separated anyways. I will define glitchless as no s+q and glitches including text box glitch, that is Puwexil's definition for his Chrono Trigger Glitchless run and I kinda agree with him, glitchless basically do in-game activity intended including not manipulating RNG except early game that comes naturally by pressing new game.

RNG manipulation is also what drives me away from speedrunning this game and even when I'm not doing real RTA, I farmed DMW3 Counter Crest like 20 times by reloading Suzaku files and repeat CC process on re-routing. My 100 PP run is basically RNG roll for 3 random spawns, 3 times fishing (seadramon, 2 fish for Mojyamon), and Curling plus 90% fights in the game hoping enemies not using their best techs. RNG grinding might sucks but that's what I can do when routing manips can be more time consuming or brain storming than RNG grinding...

With Archina's post, that's what I catch to separate glitched and intended category. I can do glitched DV chips and wrong warps in 100 PP as well, so there is no real difference on any/50/100 PP if only certain glitch banned.. It's also easier for emulator entry because no s+q is the default rule.

Alternative rule is still allow s+q for consoles as well but restrict it. Monochromon manip can be done on new game condition and at least for Pokemon/Chrono Trigger case the reasons for no s+q are too much s+q inside the run so Raikou/Kyutora's PB can still validated as only 1-2 time reset with reasonable manip to do (random spawns)

Edited post to change and add some words....

Personally I'd have to disagree with the exclusion of RNG manipulation as it would be extremely unhealthy for competition and moderating who is/isn't intentionally doing manips could be a bit of a pain. To expand on the health of the competition, all maniplerss runs would be is people grinding out the RNG they want which in turn makes the leaderboard more of a dice roll instead of something more skill-based (As you can guarantee people will eventually have to go for things such as a manipless first try MetalMamemon encounter just to stand a chance at getting this hypothetical WR.)

My proposal is not disable RNG manip, only limit the usage of s+q and mods should able to tell how manip works. If you're doing so many s+q for various things that is not from beginning of run, might as well doing glitched runs since the core of new glitches are using s+q....

Negative Price Shopping can be done even without text box glitch and more consistent to setup by s+q (requires midgame setup that typically you can't do it from new game file). So s+q can cause multiple side effects beside RNG manip and players can trigger glitches unintentionally if they do many resets at once.

Even if these activities are slower, I can just save at Jijimon's house for perfect/item-less Greymon fight? Save again for slots until 999? It takes skills to do everything: Slots, Bakemon, Monochromon, learning techs, and going further with all manipulated before you create a save file for reset. But resetting multiple times over small things is something I need to argue...

Responding to the emulator issue now.

Kyutora's 4th option would be the best option imo. Allowing ePSXe with the rule that it may not use the glitch at all since it's too inaccurate but allowing Bizhawk aswell pretty much because it is accurate. So people can rather choose on not doing the glitch or doing the glitch but sacrificing loading times. I guess it's a good compromise for emulator players without getting any inaccuracies on the leaderboard. If anyone really wants to get a top time he will switch to console at some point anyway.

@veeshadow Yet would it matter as to how many times a player does S+Q? Every time you S+Q you sacrifice ~30 seconds to reset specific things (I.E RNG) that should allow for you to do the tasks ahead either quicker or more reliably than not doing it. So every time you S+Q, you waste more time. If doing it multiple times gives you a faster outcome, then so be it.

@Hdot12 iirc doesn't Bizhawk allow for TAS runs? Not sure how it displays it as I've never used the emulator yet I'd assume there would have to be a rule that states you have to show whatever part has the TAS info inside (just to show a runner isn't cheating.)

Was meant to make this post last night but I was super tired.

@Kakori I really don't see the point in having 4 categories, especially as there won't be a huge amount of difference between "Any% No Major Glitches" and "Any% 50PP" (using that name as others have suggested it). It also doesn't address that 100PP would also need to be split if we were to do this, meaning there would actually have to be 5 categories, where two of these categories seem pointless, with NMG not being hugely different and 100PP NMG likely suffering the same fate, while being inferior as a category in general. I don't want to speak for Raikou, but I know I'd personally never run 100PP NMG, and would be surprised if anybody would if they were to be split. Same goes for Any% NMG, as the nature of what the glitches allow (with the proposed rulesets) only improves the category in both cases.

@Blackwin5 I don't really see the "Gabumon%" argument being valid in this case. The thing about the Gabumon category is that it would offer zero gameplay differences to a normal Agumon run, especially as Bakemon is the standard now and would not even offer routing differences. I understand why a category shouldn't be on a leaderboard just because it's "fun", though I feel if it were to offer significant enough gameplay differences while still completing the game, it does warrant a category. I don't feel it would be difficult to explain to an outsider that although the glitch is activated in the same way, the effects are different. Other communities have done this, look at ALttP where the majority of the glitched categories ban EG (exploration glitch) but allow OoB (out of bounds) even though the former can only be triggered via the latter, purely from how trivial the run becomes when using EG.

@veeshadow If I'm understanding your posts correctly, you're saying to limit the amount of RNG manipulation done by the player? If that is the case, I'm +1ing what Archina has said regarding this. I should also point out that RNG manipulation has never been considered a glitch by anybody and that just because this both this glitch and RNG manipulation in runs post-Freezeland requires S+Q does not mean they should be lumped together. You mentioned puwexil's Chrono Trigger runs, though what you need to understand is that those runs are done by him to resemble what the game USED to be like to speedrun, hence why if you look at the Chrono Trigger leaderboards that category is not on there, nor is there a category for "No RNG Manip". It's simply a "legacy" ruleset for his own personal enjoyment, which is fine but does not deserve a place on a leaderboard.

@Archina That is a really good point you brought up about the Piximon glitch, not just for the argument you brought up but also it's classification as a major or minor glitch. For the argument you brought up, it would likely be better to define it as banning the use of glitch items to gain prosperity points, rather than stating that all the prosperity points must be gained from their natural source. I don't really see the need of banning the Piximon glitch if the decision is made to allow the text storage glitch. On the flip side, if the decision is made for the NMG category, I'm of the opinion that the Piximon glitch IS a major glitch and would likely be banned, which is why I think that No Major Glitches is an arbitrary term itself, as others may disagree and say that the Piximon glitch should not be considered a major glitch. Perhaps a name like "Any% No Text Storage" or something along those lines might be better in this case, or as others have said "Any% 50PP", which encompasses both if the glitches are banned or allowed.

My two cents.Personally I'm not informed too informed about the glitch but I got the general idea. I think most games that have a separate category from any% have one so that there is still a run that keeps the essence of what the game is about. Like Pokmon you have the NMG cateogry as well as ALttP so you can just play through the game fast and actually experience it. The situation with ALttP a few years ago where they discovered a new glitch that conflicted with their route for "No S&Q" and skipped a few dungeons lead them to create a new category named NMG because who really wanted to do the bird thing over the old run? I think we kind of have an opposite scenario here because if we had both a "No major glitches" category and a "50pp" category then I can't imagine NMG being popular over 50pp from what I understand. So my vote would be any% and a 50pp category that allows text storage but no fake recruitments/glitched items.

As for 100pp, I think OoT 100% is the best example for people to look to. Throughout the run you get some fake versions of items via RBA but you always have to get the real version too. So if somehow you had to have fake recruitments it would be fine as long as you get the real recruitment as well. Basically as long as that rule is followed everything else goes. The real question is HOW MUCH DOES THIS AFFECT THE POSSIBILITY OF ALL MEDALS?!?!